Wanting
by Sadie Flood
Summary: 'After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.' -Spock. L/L.


Author's Note: I don't own Luke or Lorelai or Liz Phair's "Divorce Song."

_it's harder to be friends than lovers  
and you shouldn't try to mix the two  
'cause if you do it and you're still unhappy  
then you know that the problem is you_

He doesn't know how it came down to this, but now they seem to be at the end of a trip he doesn't remember agreeing to take and she's telling him that it's okay, she can get home by herself, if he wants to go.   
  
It's not that he minded driving her to the wedding of a long-lost high school friend a couple of hundred miles out his way. He'd come to appreciate being the one she'd ask for a favor, secure in the knowledge that there was no one else she would lean on when she couldn't do a thing herself. And if he knew that, then she certainly did, and now he supposes she probably took advantage of it, and maybe he minds that.  
  
Halfway through the trip things began to sour. She'd lifted her head off his shoulder, her eyes dangerously bright, that trademark petulant frown turning the corners of her mouth down like an exaggerated drawing of contrary Mary in a storybook.  
  
He thinks, this has happened before. You should have recognized the signs. You should have known.  
  
Victoria Jensen. Fifth grade. Vicky, the tomboy, the loner; first suspicion, then friendship, an outcast compatriot, after-school phone calls, shared lunches, the same favorite books, the same favorite songs, the same favorite games. Ninth grade rolls around and she's mumbling "Maybe we should go to the dance."   
  
And he went with her, he went through the motions, but she should have known by then that friendship held a greater value for him. If he'd wanted a girl to hang on him and ask why he hadn't called, he could have taken his pick from a hundred normal girls. He'd wanted her for different reasons. Things were never the same after that night.  
  
He'd only crossed that line again one more time. He'd thought things might be different now. He'd thought: there is a feeling that isn't unpleasant that comes around whenever she does, maybe it would work out this time, maybe this is what it feels like when it's right.  
  
It occurs to him now that he liked Rachel better when she was gone, and he likes Lorelai better when her head isn't on his shoulder.

_you put in my hands a loaded gun  
and then told me not to fire it  
when you did the things you said were up to me  
and then accused me of trying to fuck it up_

He wasn't the one who crossed the line, he amends. But he let it happen, and he didn't protest, he went along with it, he hoped he could give her what she wanted. It was a few months ago now, she'd been drinking coffee at the counter between the breakfast and lunch crowds, and she'd simply leaned across the counter and kissed him. It had reminded him of Vicky Jensen, after the ninth-grade dance, overly-slick lips tasting like make-up smearing against his own, but he hadn't said so. He'd let it happen. He'd wanted it to work out.  
  
So now she thinks it's her and he hasn't got the heart to tell her that it is.  
  
No, she changes her mind, it isn't her, it's him, he's the problem.  
  
I don't know, maybe that's right too, he concedes silently.  
  
She shakes her head, purses those famous lips, refuses to speak, waiting for him to say something, to calm her down, to help her out.  
  
But he doesn't have anything to say to her.  
  
He remembers why he loved her in the first place. All the other girls he'd known hated the town, they couldn't wait to get out. Not him. He loved the town, and when she blew into it with the kid in tow, embracing it with such fervor, he'd seen it in her right off. She loved it too. She loved the town, and he loved her for seeing in it what he always had, even if he didn't like to let that secret be known.  
  
He wishes that for her, the kind of love they'd shared before she broke the physical boundary could have been enough. It would have been enough for him.  
  
He likes to think he still loves her despite the rising annoyance and the raised voices. He wants to believe it's just the cramped cab of his truck, the heat from the sun when the windows are up and the cold from the wind when they're down. He wants her to come back with him right this second, drive quietly back to town, sit on a stool, let him make her coffee, tell him about her day.   
  
Instead he's sitting alone at a table while his supposed girlfriend wanders around in her best black dress, greeting an old friend, becoming the version of herself that she was before he knew her. He regards this new-old Lorelai with interest, looking for clues about how to fix what seems to be broken.  
  
But he's always known this wouldn't work. He can't stand it when she brings others around, and she wants more from him than he's willing to part with. He should just be content being the guy who pours her coffee in the morning and fixes her hamburger at night.  
  
And maybe he is.

_you've never been a waste of my time  
it's never been a drag  
so take a deep breath and count back from ten  
and maybe you'll be all right_

It's dark out. He convinces her to get back in the truck, to head home with him, and he feels like he has won.  
  
Real quiet, she says, "I don't get you."  
  
You do, he wants to tell her. You just don't want to say what you think you get.   
  
She says, "I just thought this would be different."  
  
I didn't, he wants to say.  
  
She looks at him with something like urgency and takes his hand. She wants him to tell her it's all right. He gets that. But he doesn't want to say what isn't true.  
  
So he says, "I love you," and she seems satisfied.  
  
He holds onto her hand and steers with the other, and he thinks, if things could be like this all the time, just like this, if she could be like this all the time, we could be happy doing this thing together.  
  
But tomorrow will come, and she'll put on that pout again, and she'll want from him what he doesn't want to give, and he'll withhold from her the things he knows he should provide, and right now is probably the last best time they'll have together.  
  
And it makes him sad, but he should have known.


End file.
